The effect of breed on freezability of semen of fancy fowl.

A simple cryopreservation method described in 1995 by Tselutin et al. was used for freezing the semen of four fancy fowl breeds: White Crested Black Polish (WCBP), Greenleg Partridge (GP), Italian Partridge (IP) and Black Minorca (BP). The differences in quality (ejaculate volume, osmotic pressure, sperm concentration and morphology) of fresh semen between evaluated breeds were observed, as well as the differences in semen freezability. The freezing-thawing process caused significant (P≤0.01) decrease in percentage of live, normal spermatozoa, with coincident increase in percentage of dead spermatozoa and spermatozoa with acrosome defect. In relation to the fresh semen, the number of live, normal spermatozoa that survived cryopreservation procedure constituted 18.1% in WCBP, 25.1% in GP, 26.2% in IP and 33.6% in BM semen.